A recent study by a retired BYU professor and his colleague at Utah State found that gay Mormons in a heterosexual marriage have a high likelihood of divorce. Shocker, I know. However, the article included several other interesting statistics, such as that 70% of the individuals had left the church either before or after their divorce, and that 80% of them had made some kind of efforts - private, groups, religious, therapy, etc - to change their orientations, all unsuccessfully.
This is a common finding regarding the effects of "conversion" or "reparative" therapies - very few have demonstrated any kind of success, and some even employ strategies that have been damaging. The Pan American Health Organization, a regional office of the World Health Organization, has stated that these practices “lack medical justification and represent a serious threat to the health and well-being of affected people.” In 2000, the American Psychiatric Association published that, “‘reparative’ therapists have not produced any rigorous scientific research to substantiate their claims of cure” which has led them to “oppose any psychiatric treatment such as reparative or conversion therapy which is based upon the assumption that homosexuality per se is a mental disorder."
This brings up some interesting questions. Why isn't homosexuality a disorder anymore? Why did it used to be? What makes something a disorder like ADD, or transgenderism, or bibliomania (compulsive book-collecting - I think my husband and I have this)? And thus we leave the realm of science and enter the sociological swamp of competing ideologies. Here's the issue: What we can ethically "treat" depends on what we consider to be a "problem".
In general, when someone presents any kind of unique condition, we generally place it into one of two categories: for this article I will conceptualize them as "disorder" and "orientation". A disorder is a problem that we agree needs to be fixed. An orientation is just a characteristic that makes someone different.
Many conditions have switched categories in the past - being left handed, for example, which used to be considered a disorder, is now a relatively neutral condition (which I am personally thankful for). Hyperactivity in children has gone from being considered an orientation to a possible disorder. We may pretend that there is a scientific difference between these categories: The APA has created a rubric for determining whether something is considered a disorder - such as requiring it to be "distressing" or to negatively impact one's life, etc. - but even those definitions are derived from our values, and full of moral assumptions. Giving something a definition does not mean it has anything to do with science - like whether you label an embryo a "human being" or just a "clump of cells". It's a moral label, not a scientific one, but that label has real implications.
For example - if you see homosexuality as simply an orientation because you believe that there's nothing WRONG with it, then you obviously don't want it to be considered an illness. The illness label creates negative stigma and unneeded pressure to change (imagine me and a bunch of lefties with inferiority complexes). People who believe that homosexuality is morally acceptable therefore obviously disapprove of orientation change efforts, even if the change efforts were effective.
On the other hand, if you believe that patterns of homosexual thoughts, feelings, and emotions ARE a problem, then it does make sense to continue pursuing change strategies - even if CURRENT modalities are ineffective. If we agree it's a problem, then we'll continue researching and experimenting and looking for better solutions - like we do with every other mental and emotional condition of concern.
Here's the problem: If people with moral oppositions to changing someone's sexual orientation rush to publish the negative results of existing modalities in order to make their viewpoint look like a rational and not a moral one, they miss the point. Existing modalities are irrelevant to the argument. If orientation change therapy is morally wrong, then it shouldn't matter if it's effective of not - it's wrong, and it should stop. And if changing one's orientation is morally right and important, then it shouldn't matter if our current tactics are effective or not - it's right, and we'll keep working until we figure it out. Remember how many things were tried before penicillin?
Bad current treatments are not evidence of an incurable condition.
What's even sadder is that those who are actively fighting against and shutting down attempts to change people's orientation prevent those who WANT to change from having the chance to do so. The APA discourages it; no respected grants promote research in that field. In fact, conversion therapies of any kind are banned for minors in California, New Jersey. and Washington D.C., effectively shutting down the conversation entirely and preventing new and better therapies from ever being developed. For a group that seems so intent on preserving individual rights and freedoms, that seems to be an awful lot of hand-tying.
In some ways, sexual orientation is unlike being left or right-handed. It's fluid; some people feel it to varying degrees and in different ways. Some people have been gay from birth, while others develop a gay orientation because of circumstances such as childhood abuse. Queer theorists agree with me. So if we already acknowledge that orientation has at least an element of changeability, and since clinicians commit to not impose our morality on client, then at the very least, don't people deserve the right to pursue an orientation of their choosing, with our support? For a child whose sexual feelings have been skewed through abuse and desperately wants to change; for a father who has a wife and kids that he loves - shouldn't we at least allow strategies that might help these people, and preserve their families? Or are we so presumptive as to assume that ANY efforts in ANY realm of change strategies are doomed to fail?
As a Mormon and an American, I respect the right for others to disagree with me on moral and religious issues. I can respect people who reject the concept of changing someone's sexual orientation. But let's not hide behind the weak argument that the whole idea should be rejected outright just because there happen to be bad therapies out there. It is a moral issue, and both sides are taking a moral stance. If you are someone who believes that homosexuality is a disorder that should cured, then let's stop defending bad programs and let's get to work figuring out how to do it right. A lot of people are waiting on us.
This is a common finding regarding the effects of "conversion" or "reparative" therapies - very few have demonstrated any kind of success, and some even employ strategies that have been damaging. The Pan American Health Organization, a regional office of the World Health Organization, has stated that these practices “lack medical justification and represent a serious threat to the health and well-being of affected people.” In 2000, the American Psychiatric Association published that, “‘reparative’ therapists have not produced any rigorous scientific research to substantiate their claims of cure” which has led them to “oppose any psychiatric treatment such as reparative or conversion therapy which is based upon the assumption that homosexuality per se is a mental disorder."
This brings up some interesting questions. Why isn't homosexuality a disorder anymore? Why did it used to be? What makes something a disorder like ADD, or transgenderism, or bibliomania (compulsive book-collecting - I think my husband and I have this)? And thus we leave the realm of science and enter the sociological swamp of competing ideologies. Here's the issue: What we can ethically "treat" depends on what we consider to be a "problem".
Many conditions have switched categories in the past - being left handed, for example, which used to be considered a disorder, is now a relatively neutral condition (which I am personally thankful for). Hyperactivity in children has gone from being considered an orientation to a possible disorder. We may pretend that there is a scientific difference between these categories: The APA has created a rubric for determining whether something is considered a disorder - such as requiring it to be "distressing" or to negatively impact one's life, etc. - but even those definitions are derived from our values, and full of moral assumptions. Giving something a definition does not mean it has anything to do with science - like whether you label an embryo a "human being" or just a "clump of cells". It's a moral label, not a scientific one, but that label has real implications.
For example - if you see homosexuality as simply an orientation because you believe that there's nothing WRONG with it, then you obviously don't want it to be considered an illness. The illness label creates negative stigma and unneeded pressure to change (imagine me and a bunch of lefties with inferiority complexes). People who believe that homosexuality is morally acceptable therefore obviously disapprove of orientation change efforts, even if the change efforts were effective.
On the other hand, if you believe that patterns of homosexual thoughts, feelings, and emotions ARE a problem, then it does make sense to continue pursuing change strategies - even if CURRENT modalities are ineffective. If we agree it's a problem, then we'll continue researching and experimenting and looking for better solutions - like we do with every other mental and emotional condition of concern.
Here's the problem: If people with moral oppositions to changing someone's sexual orientation rush to publish the negative results of existing modalities in order to make their viewpoint look like a rational and not a moral one, they miss the point. Existing modalities are irrelevant to the argument. If orientation change therapy is morally wrong, then it shouldn't matter if it's effective of not - it's wrong, and it should stop. And if changing one's orientation is morally right and important, then it shouldn't matter if our current tactics are effective or not - it's right, and we'll keep working until we figure it out. Remember how many things were tried before penicillin?
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| Blootletting scene from the 1600's |
Bad current treatments are not evidence of an incurable condition.
What's even sadder is that those who are actively fighting against and shutting down attempts to change people's orientation prevent those who WANT to change from having the chance to do so. The APA discourages it; no respected grants promote research in that field. In fact, conversion therapies of any kind are banned for minors in California, New Jersey. and Washington D.C., effectively shutting down the conversation entirely and preventing new and better therapies from ever being developed. For a group that seems so intent on preserving individual rights and freedoms, that seems to be an awful lot of hand-tying.
In some ways, sexual orientation is unlike being left or right-handed. It's fluid; some people feel it to varying degrees and in different ways. Some people have been gay from birth, while others develop a gay orientation because of circumstances such as childhood abuse. Queer theorists agree with me. So if we already acknowledge that orientation has at least an element of changeability, and since clinicians commit to not impose our morality on client, then at the very least, don't people deserve the right to pursue an orientation of their choosing, with our support? For a child whose sexual feelings have been skewed through abuse and desperately wants to change; for a father who has a wife and kids that he loves - shouldn't we at least allow strategies that might help these people, and preserve their families? Or are we so presumptive as to assume that ANY efforts in ANY realm of change strategies are doomed to fail?
As a Mormon and an American, I respect the right for others to disagree with me on moral and religious issues. I can respect people who reject the concept of changing someone's sexual orientation. But let's not hide behind the weak argument that the whole idea should be rejected outright just because there happen to be bad therapies out there. It is a moral issue, and both sides are taking a moral stance. If you are someone who believes that homosexuality is a disorder that should cured, then let's stop defending bad programs and let's get to work figuring out how to do it right. A lot of people are waiting on us.
